In speaking of Aleman, I am reminded of his “San Antonio de Padua,” printed in 12mo, at Valencia, in 1607, ff. 309. It belongs to the same class of books with the “San Patricio” of Montalvan, (see, _ante_, Vol. II. p. 298,) but is more elaborate and more devout. The number of the Saint’s miracles that it records is very great. Whether he invented any of them for the occasion, I do not know; but they sometimes read as much like _novelas_ as some of his stories in the “Guzman” do, and are always written in the same idiomatic and unadulterated Castilian. It is introduced by a _cancion_ in honor of it by Lope de Vega; but I cannot find that it was ever reprinted;--why, it is difficult to say, for it is an uncommonly attractive book of its class. It is not surprising, therefore, that the first attempt of the Academy, made in the form of a short discourse, prefixed to its larger Dictionary, produced little effect. A separate work, which appeared in 1742, did something more, but not much; and the successive editions of it which were called for by the public rather showed the uneasy state of opinion in relation to the points under discussion, than any thing else. At last, in 1815, the Academy, in the eighth recension of its treatise on Orthography, and in 1817, in the fifth of its smaller Dictionary, began a series of important changes, which have been generally adopted by subsequent writers of authority, and appear to have nearly settled the spelling of the Castilian, though still it seems open to a few further modifications, and even to invite them.[283] [283] The difficulties in Castilian orthography are set forth in the “Diálogo de las Lenguas” (Mayans y Siscar, Orígenes, Tom. II. pp. 47-65); but the ingenious author of that discussion is more severe than was necessary on Lebrixa. An anonymous writer of an excellent essay on the same subject, in the first volume of the Repertorio Americano, (Tom. I. p. 27,) is a great deal more judicious. But how unsettled much still remains in practice may be seen in the “Manual del Cajista, por José María Palacios,” Madrid, 1845, 18mo, where (pp. 134-154) is a “Prontuario de las Voces de dudosa Ortografía,” containing above 1800 words.